What's new

Time for Pak-US ‘non-allied bond’: Haqqani

UmarJustice

FULL MEMBER

New Recruit

Joined
Sep 4, 2012
Messages
50
Reaction score
0
The United States and Pakistan have widely divergent interests in South Asia and should break up to forge a ‘non-allied relationship’, Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistani ambassador to Washington said.

“Each country accuses the other of being a terrible ally – and perhaps both are right,” Husain Haqqani, who is now a professor at Boston University and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, writes in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs.

“Honesty about the true status of their ties might even help both parties get along better and cooperate more easily. After all, they could hardly be worse than they are now, clinging to the idea of an alliance even though neither actually believes in it. Sometimes, the best way forward in a relationship lies in admitting that it’s over in its current incarnation,” he said in a in-depth article: Breaking up is Not Hard to Do.

Haqqani’s piece will be music to the ears of many lawmakers in Congress who have increasingly been demanding cuts to foreign aid to Pakistan, commented The Hill newspaper, which published excerpts from the article. The Obama administration had hoped to improve relations with Pakistan with its choice of Senator John Kerry - who tripled non-military aid to the country as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – to head the State Department, but Haqqani said those efforts were for naught.

“In the end, these attempts to build a strategic partnership got nowhere,” he writes. “The civilian leaders were unable to smooth over the distrust between the US and the Pakistani militaries and intelligence agencies.”

While Washington now wants to see Pakistan focused on fighting terrorism – as it wanted Pakistan focused on fighting communism in the 1980s - Pakistan’s goal has always been to assert more regional power against arch-rival India, Haqqani writes.

He goes on to call for the creation of a “non-allied relationship” where the United States is free to pursue its interests in the region without excessive consideration of Pakistan’s reaction. Portions of the Haqqani article have also been placed on Foreign Affairs magazine’s website.

“Instead of continuing their endless battling, the United States and Pakistan should acknowledge that their interests simply do not converge enough to make them strong partners. Giving up the fiction of an alliance would free up Washington to explore new ways of achieving its goals in South Asia. And it would allow Islamabad to finally pursue its regional ambitions - which would either succeed once and for all or, more likely, teach Pakistani officials the limitations of their country’s power,” Haqqani wrote.

Unless the two countries learn to tamp down their unrealistic expectations about one another, Haqqani writes, “the new coolness between the two countries will eventually provoke a reckoning.”

The former Pakistani envoy said, “Washington has not had an easy time managing the US-Pakistani relationship, to put it mildly. For decades, the US has sought to change Pakistan’s strategic focus from competing with India and seeking more influence in Afghanistan to protecting its own internal stability and economic development. But even though Pakistan has continued to depend on US military and economic support, it has not changed its behavior much. Each country accuses the other of being a terrible ally - and perhaps both are right. “Pakistanis tend to think of the United States as a bully. In their view, Washington provides desperately needed aid intermittently, yanking it away whenever US officials want to force policy changes. Pakistanis believe that Washington has never been grateful for the sacrifice of thousands of Pakistani military and security officials who have died fighting terrorists in recent decades, nor mourned the tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians whom those terrorists have killed. Many in the country, including President Asif Ali Zardari and General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, recognise that Pakistan has at times gone off the American script, but they argue that the country would be a better ally if only the US showed more sensitivity to Islamabad’s regional concerns.

On the other side, Americans see Pakistan as the ungrateful recipient of almost $40 billion in economic and military assistance since 1947, $23 billion of it for fighting terrorism over the last decade alone. In their view, Pakistan has taken American dollars with a smile, even as it covertly developed nuclear weapons in the 1980s, passed nuclear secrets to others in the 1990s, and ‘supported’ militant groups more recently. No matter what Washington does, according to a growing cadre of US senators, members of Congress, and editorial writers, it can’t count on Pakistan as a reliable ally. Meanwhile, large amounts of US aid have simply failed to invigorate Pakistan’s economy.”

Haqqani was ambassador to the US from 2008 to 2011. He stepped down after an American businessman accused him of sending a secretary to Admiral Mike Mullen, the then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asking for US help in thwarting an alleged pending military coup.

Haqqani denies the charge and has said he is afraid of returning to his home country to testify in court about threats he’s received.

Time for Pak-US
 
Can Pakistan survive without US aid? The current war on the Taliban will be severely affected if the US stops with the supply of weapons to Pakistan? It certainly wouldn't be a situation of the TTP laying down their weapons simply because the US stopped funding Pakistan right ?
 
Oh please not again the same BS that USAID is driving the whole damn Pakistan and its economy .

Kindly stopping BS coz its enough is enough . If Congress want to stop then Y the hell they dont do anything about it . Stop giving this so called non existent AID . Coz i guess Pakistan is capable enough to fight on its own .
 
Oh please not again the same BS that USAID is driving the whole damn Pakistan and its economy .

Kindly stopping BS coz its enough is enough . If Congress want to stop then Y the hell they dont do anything about it . Stop giving this so called non existent AID . Coz i guess Pakistan is capable enough to fight on its own .

Actually, if you read the article, it is arguing for both countries to go their own ways because their interests in the region simply do not match up.

This is the key quote:

“Instead of continuing their endless battling, the United States and Pakistan should acknowledge that their interests simply do not converge enough to make them strong partners. Giving up the fiction of an alliance would free up Washington to explore new ways of achieving its goals in South Asia. And it would allow Islamabad to finally pursue its regional ambitions - which would either succeed once and for all or, more likely, teach Pakistani officials the limitations of their country’s power,” Haqqani wrote.

Unless the two countries learn to tamp down their unrealistic expectations about one another, Haqqani writes, “the new coolness between the two countries will eventually provoke a reckoning.”
 
Actually, if you read the article, it is arguing for both countries to go their own ways because their interests in the region simply do not match up.

This is the key quote:

I have read the article this comment was for the first comment on the thread.
 
Giving AID to any foreign country is in the interest of US and it gives leverage over that country and they can interfere in their domestic affair.US will not stop Aid to and if Pakistan gets good government they will sure stop this aid .

Why Russia stop Taking USAID because they where interfering with the help of NGO and same we see in india with the help of NGO they are organising protest in south india for Nuclear reactor.
 
Giving AID to any foreign country is in the interest of US and it gives leverage over that country and they can interfere in their domestic affair.US will not stop Aid to and if Pakistan gets good government they will sure stop this aid .

Why Russia stop Taking USAID because they where interfering with the help of NGO and same we see in india with the help of NGO they are organising protest in south india for Nuclear reactor.

Exactly they are giving money to politician and bureaucrats and people in power to get their things done. In return they want is to give them free hand to do whatever they want .
 
The best thing is to Label NGO who take foreign donation as Foreign Agent like russia and your media is also corrupt with their money.

Exactly they are giving money to politician and bureaucrats and people in power to get their things done. In return they want is to give them free hand to do whatever they want .
 
The best thing is to Label NGO who take foreign donation as Foreign Agent like russia and your media is also corrupt with their money.

I think it is better to kill the source i.e. stop the so called US AIDS :D .......

If we stop it these so called NGOs and all the other things related to it will die out soon enough .
 
Absolutely right Kill the source and all the fitna is going to die naturally.

I think it is better to kill the source i.e. stop the so called US AIDS :D .......

If we stop it these so called NGOs and all the other things related to it will die out soon enough .
 
Can Pakistan survive without US aid? The current war on the Taliban will be severely affected if the US stops with the supply of weapons to Pakistan? It certainly wouldn't be a situation of the TTP laying down their weapons simply because the US stopped funding Pakistan right ?
you indeed live in a dream world.. Pakistan doesnt depend on US aid in any way if they want things to run without US its easy and workable and just to enlighten you Pakistan had the best GDP growth rates in recents decades in 90's when it was under immense US sanctions following disintegration of USSR. Just to enlighten you more Pak lost around 50 billions dollars in trade owing to this conflict since 2001 and the aid US gave isnt more than 10-12 billion dollars..So you can do plus minus yourself . Its some rotten eggs in our army and politics who are rubbing their a$$es to US tunes when in reality we dont need them especially when they are no good and are an active partner of india in its proxy wars against Pak some thing the current SOD haguel said in 2011.
 
Haqqani is sooo realistic... He's almost 3D !!

--------

Seriously though, the US is probably going to repeat what it did in the 80s and 90s. "Ally in the War of Terror" won't be required once the said war is over in Afghanistan.

And then we'll have more civil war there with effects rippling into Pakistan once again.
 
Have to agree 100 percent with the former ambassador -- and would remind forum members that this idea had currency on this forum long before ambassador Haqqani picked up on the idea _ we as on record for having offered that for the US in Pakistan, less is more - let some time pass without controversy, and to avoid Pakistani politics, something the US seems to have a difficult time doing.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom